3D printers · Elegoo
Owners keep the Neptune 4 as a budget FDM workhorse they can open up over time, flashing community firmware and accepting the layer lines and small instabilities that come with the price.
It can be made open source. One owner chose it specifically because the stock firmware is closed but OpenNept4une can be flashed onto it, leaving room to tweak and upgrade as they learn more about printing.
Print quality is the sticking point raised against it. An owner who makes parts and plugs on a regular Neptune 4 says the output carries layer lines and instabilities, sometimes far too much, and ends up filling and sanding with body filler to get a usable surface.
Pick up to three. You get a page with just those, side by side, on the subjects owners raised.
Once the novelty wears off, the Neptune 4 settles into being a parts machine rather than a showpiece. The owner who uses one for functional parts has landed on PETG as the material that gives the best results for the money, and treats post-processing as part of the job: layer lines are expected, and filler and sanding are the routine answer for anything that needs a smooth face.
What keeps people interested is the tinkering path. The printer is not open out of the box, but the OpenNept4une firmware turns it into something an owner can modify, and one buyer picked it for exactly that reason, planning to grow into upgrades rather than outgrow the machine. Enclosure came up once, in a mixed account, but the comment does not say enough to judge how the Neptune 4 handles being boxed in.
There is very little here on how the Neptune 4 holds up over years. The one account that talks about chasing problems until none were left, stripping the electronics and rebuilding into a heated enclosure for ASA and polycarbonate, is describing an Ender 3 project, not a Neptune 4, so it says nothing about this printer's own durability. The z-axis and consistency themes rest on that same comment.
To be plain: the long-term accounts for this product are thin. Nine owners were labelled, no theme was raised by more than one of them, and none of the comments describe a Neptune 4 failing or surviving a specific stretch of use. Treat this page as early notes, not a verdict, until more owners weigh in.
Nothing with a clear majority yet. Owners who raised these subjects were split, or too few to judge.
Nothing has a clear majority against it yet. Counted from the owners who raised each subject, not from everyone. A subject is judged once at least 4 owners raise it.
5 more subjects came up from fewer than 4 owners each, which is not enough for a fair reading. To see how it stacks up, compare it with another machine.
The same owner, asked again at each point. Fills in as owners answer.
Two questions: how long you have had it, and anything you would like to say about it. Then we ask again as it ages. This helps our mission.
More in 3d printers: Creality Ender 3, Bambu Lab A1, Anycubic Kobra 3.
Among the 0 owner accounts here that gave a duration, 0 described a failure.
Before you buy one used, ask the seller: how old it is, whether it was ever repaired and by whom, and whether any of the parts above have been replaced. Ask to see it run. A receipt tells you the warranty start date; most makers honour the term only for the first owner.
Public discussions we read and summarised in our own words. Nothing here was submitted to Still Kicks.
Counted from public accounts by people who said they own it, and summarised by Still Kicks in its own words. Not a manufacturer claim, a lab test or an estimate.
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